"Carphone Warehouse broke Data Protection Act, says ICO"

From Outlaw News 17/01/08

“The Carphone Warehouse allowed customers to view other people's account details, passed inaccurate information on to debt collectors and opened accounts in the wrong name, according to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

The actions were in breach of the Data Protection Act and the ICO has issued Carphone Warehouse and sister company Talk Talk with enforcement notices ordering them to comply with the Data Protection Act. If they fail to do so they risk a criminal prosecution.

"Both companies failed to meet the basic principles of the Data Protection Act," said an ICO statement.

Carphone Warehouse said that the incidents happened when the company was extremely busy.”

Sounds about right.

This story is worthy of a mention on law actually for at least two good reasons. Firstly, frequent readers of my blog will recall my penchant for covering stories relating to data protection issues and associated bungles, foul-ups and all the rest of it. Secondly, I’ve actually done a stint at ‘Carphone’ myself – not an entirely happy episode it has to be said, but there it remains etched in my memory, despite my best attempts to sweep it under the proverbial carpet.

I’ve no doubt Carphone Warehouse will have learnt its lesson from this run-in with the ICO. Far be it for me to criticise them, of course.